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Scapegoat

Scapegoating and the Stigma of Mental Illness Part 2

by Mike Nichols on July 15, 2008 · 4 comments

You’ve heard all the hurtful words before — words like “psycho,” “wacko,” and “schizo.”

Then there are the offhand descriptions of someone’s behavior as “OCD” or “having a panic attack.”

Advertisements regularly use mental illness symptoms to show how miserable life is without their products. And you’ve seen the jokes about mental health on television referring to “loony bins” and characters in straitjackets. 

Mental health conditions are the butt of jokes in popular culture. While there are taboos against making discriminatory remarks about many groups of people, it seems that it’s open season on those with mental illnesses. 

Negative portrayals of people with mental illnesses fuel fear and mistrust and reinforce distorted perceptions. They marginalize the mentally ill, making them feel that they are not useful members of society.

But if you or a loved one has a mental illness or has been diagnosed with a mental health disorder, you know that these words and gimmicks and attitudes aren’t just harmless fun. They perpetuate the stigma attached to mental health conditions. Stigma and scapegoating makes you angry and upset, and it causes the public to misunderstand mental illnesses. 

Though the stigma and scapegoating of a mental health disorder can be painful and shaming, you can find ways to cope with it and even combat it.

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Scapegoating and the Stigma of Mental Illness, Part 1

by Mike Nichols on July 14, 2008 · 10 comments

Scapegoat CartoonDo any of these attitudes seem familiar?

  • Nearly 6 out of 10 people describe a person with a mental illness as “someone who has to be kept in a psychiatric or mental hospital”
  • One third of people think that those with mental health problems should not have the same rights to a job as everyone else
  • Only 31 percent of people think that mental hospitals are an outdated means of treating the mentally ill
  • 1 in 8 people would not want to live next door to a person with a mental illness
  • 5 out of 10 people believe that the mentally ill are violent and a threat to society

These findings are from a poll released by the U.K.’s Department of Health in May, 2008. There is ample evidence to show that the same stigma attached to mental illness in the U.K. is just as operative in the United States. 

Other research has found that nearly 9 of 10 people with mental health problems have been affected by scapegoating, stigma and discrimination. Two thirds of the mentally ill say they have stopped doing things because of the stigma they face.

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